Apple Event October 2018: what to expect

Apple may have announced a whole slew of new hardware in September, but the Cupertino company isn’t done yet: Apple has a second event on Tuesday, October 30th, where it’s expected to announce new iPad Pros, an updated MacBook Air, and more.

New iPad Pros

The main star of Tuesday’s event is expected to be a pair of new iPad Pros, which are getting completely overhauled with a new design. It’s the iPad equivalent of the jump Apple made with the iPhone X last year.

The new iPad Pros are said to get new, edge-to-edge screens similar to Apple’s newest iPhones, removing the home button / Touch ID sensor in favor of swiping gesture for navigation and a Face ID scanner. Additionally, Apple is said to be switching over from its proprietary Lighting port to USB-C, a move that would let the new iPad Pros share chargers and accessories with Apple’s laptop (and leave the iPhone as the sole portable Apple device stuck on Lightning).

Along with the bigger hardware changes, Apple is expected to improve the internal hardware on the new iPad Pros, too, upgrading the processor to a new variant of Apple’s recently released A12 Bionic chipset. And in what would be a first for the company, it’s adding a custom Apple graphics chip.

A MacBook Air successor

Apple hasn’t functionally updated the MacBook Air since 2015, leaving fans of the ultra-lightweight laptop to linger in outdated agony as Apple has lavished its attention on the newer 12-inch MacBook and updated MacBook Pro laptops. But that should change on Tuesday with the expected announcement of a new MacBook Air.

The new Air heir is said to keep the same 13-inch screen size as the current Air, but at a much higher resolution and with slimmer bezels, along with a much-needed bump in specs. (The current Air offers a comically outdated 2015-era Intel processor.)

Return of the Mac mini

But even the MacBook Air hasn’t gone as long without an update as the Mac mini, which last saw a new model on October 16th, 2014. (Apple’s event will mark 1,475 days since that last revision.) But Apple is expected to finally give Mac mini fans a new model at its event, with updated specifications and additional features for professional users (fingers crossed for USB-C.)

Photo James Bareham / The Verge

Other Macs get new chips

While the focus is expected to be on the MacBook Air and Mac mini, Apple might update some of its other Macs, too. Intel has new desktop chips out that would make sense for Apple’s iMac and iMac Pro models, and the 13-inch MacBook Pro Escape Key and 12-inch MacBook didn’t get spec boosts earlier this year when Apple updated its other laptops, so we might see some news there, too.

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